Just that, for me, "Bird of Prey" never sounded very Klingon to me. It always felt like it suggested a bird hunting and stalking its kill, waiting for the right moment to strike. IN Trek terms, Romulans creeping up under cloak, then revealing themselves long enough to swoop in for the kill. Klingons, on the other hand, just go in and conquer or blast the shit out of you, so "Battle Cruiser" seemed more appropriate.

But, yeah, with TSFS, the damage was done, and future Trek's ran with it. Klingons didn't get "warbirds" until the Abrams Trek movie. Until then, it was a huge, Next Gen era Romulan ship.

Some vague points that I don't think have come up are vaguely related:
Some fans (as well as old FASA manuals) also believed the Klingon Bird-of-Prey was a Romulan design being used by Klingons, presumably as part of the battle cruiser/cloaking device deal. Enterprise later gave Klingon's a near-identical bird-of-prey at the end of season 2, about a century earlier.

The similarities in the K and R ships could still be explained by a technological exchange, just bump it back long before Enterprise. Otherwise surely Romulan ships would/should resemble Vulcan ones?

It's always seemed weird to me that Klingons and Romulans both have green ships. With Romulans it makes sense: Romulan blood is green, and they want to appear scary. With Klingons...they want to scare Romulans?

Perhaps entirely Romulan designs do. The D'deridex's open center recalls the ringship designs used for the Vulcans in ENT and the aft hulls of the ships from TNG's "Unification". Don't forget, the Romulan cruiser in "Balance of Terror" looks as it does because, according to the script, it was based on UFP designs, essentially a saucer section with warp nacelles attached.

Klingons, on the other hand, just go in and conquer or blast the shit out of you, so "Battle Cruiser" seemed more appropriate.

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To be sure, Klingon ships in TOS always played sneaky and dirty tricks. There was no "simple blasting" in any of the episodes, really.

In "Errand of Mercy", our introduction to the Klingon species sounds very much like an attack by a cloak-capable Bird of Prey: an enemy appears from nowhere, completely surprises our heroes despite them being on war alert, and launches a volley of torpedoes which all score perfect hits. The Enterprise shrugs off the hits, responds with a phaser blast, and the enemy is immediately dust.

It's always seemed weird to me that Klingons and Romulans both have green ships. With Romulans it makes sense: Romulan blood is green, and they want to appear scary. With Klingons...they want to scare Romulans?

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So, in TUC, should the Klingons have been flying pink ships? That would have made an impression!

It's always seemed weird to me that Klingons and Romulans both have green ships. With Romulans it makes sense: Romulan blood is green, and they want to appear scary. With Klingons...they want to scare Romulans?

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So, in TUC, should the Klingons have been flying pink ships? That would have made an impression!

TSFS was originally supposed to include Romulans. The producers at some point said, "who ever heard of Romulans," so they changed it to Klingons. They didn't bother changing the ship.

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No, since the movie featured Vulcans such as Saavik, Sarek, T'Lar and Young Spock, aliens with slanted eyebrows and pointed ears, there was concern that the general public would be confused if the movie's antagonists were seemingly identical in appearance. They knew the movie's storyline wouldn't permit an elaborate backstory for the origin of Romulans, so it was easier to switch the enemy race to Klingons, especially since a large number of expensive Klingon leather uniforms were in storage since ST:TMP. Since TOS had already established that there had been a tech exchange by the two powers (ie. Romulans using Klingon vessels - mainly because the Season One Romulan vessel had been lost/stolen/broken), there wasn't need for further elaboration.

There was a stage note in the ST III script that wasn't used in the final draft, where Kruge was a Klingon lord who'd stolen a Romulan bird of prey:
eg.

Was it repo'd? I KNEW they were on a smaller budget in S3, but that is just sad.

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For a long time, people speculated that the Romulan ship from Season One had been stolen and, when they needed a Romulan vessel in Season Three and no search had turned up the Romulan ship model, they decided to go with the then-just-newly-built Klingon ship model and add the line to the script about tech sharing.

However, I read one theory, a few years ago, as to why the "stolen"/"missing" model has never materialized in any private collection. Supposedly the main hull of that Romulan model was plaster, not the usual wood/plastic/whatever, and it had been accidentally dropped - and smashed to smithereens.

I have heard two different versions of why the original Romulan ship never appeared again:
1) it got broken, and the budget wouldn't allow for repair.
2) Gene hated it, thought it looked bad on screen, and would not allow its use again (possibly had it destroyed).
It's all speculation: take your pick.

The Romulan vessel model was only ever used in "Balance of Terror." Any subsequent episodes where it was featured was just stock footage from BoT.

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Which episodes were those?
AFAIK, the Romulans only appeared in Balance of Terror and Enterprise Incident. TOS-R decided to make one of the ships in the latter into the ship from BoT, but in the Original Series I believe that ship appeared only in that episode.